Various forms of personal transportation are fun to use but are also burdensome and are often banned from public and private areas. Teenagers use scooters, rollerblades, skateboards, bicycles, and even cars to speed up their travel. With the exception of cars, however, each of these personal transportation options has limited usefulness since they must be carried when not in use. Skateboards are not really designed for multi-terrain environments. They provide fun but require a good deal of skill to use even at a basic functioning level and are therefore frequently dangerous to a user. Travel by car, on the other hand, continues to be problematic since the number of cars driven by people who need only travel short distances can contribute to an increased cluttering on roads and therefore force up the cost of gasoline. Issues such as legality, inconvenience, security and weight prevent other products such as inline skates, motorized scooters and Segways from effectively addressing the growing personal transportation problem. Although some interesting motorized scooters exist which do have great gas mileage, they too are problematic since they are considered motorcycles by law and require special permits, turn signals and require the user to mix gasoline with oil to make them run. Motorized scooters therefore tend to be expensive to maintain and operate and give rise to parking issues. Moreover, these scooters are heavy, difficult to ride and very hard to carry, and people under the age of 18 are not permitted to drive them due to legal restrictions. Thus, even potential alternatives are not very convenient for personal transportation purposes.
Published U.S. Patent Application No. 20090120705 to McKinzie discloses a pair of shoes having retractable motorized wheels. Each of the shoes has an upper portion, a sole, and first and second wheels mounted on the sole which are able to move from a retracted to an extended position. When the wheels are in an extended position, one wheel of one of the shoes engages a battery-powered DC motor mounted on the shoe. The motor is controlled by a hand-held throttle. A latching mechanism engages to secure the wheels in the desired position. The shoes may be used for skating, with and without power assistance, with the wheels in an extended position. The shoes may also be used for walking with the wheels in a retracted position. The pair of shoes disclosed in this application, however, lacks an additional battery pack for replacing depleted batteries with fully charged batteries.
Published U.S. Patent Application No. 20040239056 to Cho et al. discloses a wheel assembly for a shoe. A housing is attached to a heel portion of the shoe and defined with an opening. A wheel section is mounted to the housing in a manner such that a pair of wheels of the wheel section can be moved between an operating position. They are received in the opening of the housing to be partially exposed out of a lower surface of the housing and a non-operating position in which they are taken out of the opening of the housing to be seated on a rear end portion of the shoe. The wheel section includes the pair of wheels, a shaft for supporting the pair of wheels, and a support bracket having one end which is connected to the shaft and the other end which is connected to the shoe by a hinge pin. However, the wheel assembly does not provide an adequate safety control for the device and hence there is a risk the wearer may slip if the wearer is not an expert in controlling the wheels.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,572,121 issued to Shih describes a shoe and a wheel device having one end detachably secured together with a projection-and-lock notch engagement. A toe member and a separate heel member are engaged on the front and the rear portions of the shoe. A latch is attached to the wheel device for latching and securing the heel member and the rear portion of the shoe to the wheel device. A quick release lock device is attached to the middle portion of the wheel device and engageable with the heel member for locking the heel member and the middle portion of the shoe to the wheel device. This shoe and wheel combination, however, fails to address the need for a safe and effective way of controlling the speed of rotation of the wheels or a way to quickly stop the device in the event of a fall or other emergency.
Therefore, there is a pressing need for a personal mobility device that is convenient, lightweight and capable of enabling users to easily comply with applicable transportation laws. There is also a need for a personal mobility device that provides an additional battery pack for replacing depleted batteries with fully charged batteries to thereby extend the use time of the device. Further, there is a need for a mobility device that provides users enhanced convenience by enabling them to remove parts of the device and stow them in accessories such as backpacks, belts and battery packs while also providing them with adequate safety controls for controlling the speed and direction of the device.